


You stay alive, I stay alive.

by AbbyHolmes



Category: Advanced Warfare - Fandom, Call of Duty, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare - Fandom
Genre: Drama, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot, Sequel, Slight OOCness, Terminus re-written, m/m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbyHolmes/pseuds/AbbyHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This Oneshot is a sequel to my oneshot "Born to die." It's based on an idea of a reader (thanks again!) and sort of a re-write of the last mission "Terminus":<br/>There ist no room for feelings at war. But what if you can't switch them off? What if all you can think about is to save someone else? Someone closer to you than you'd thought? What would you do to save that person? Gideon and Mitchell find themselves inside a suicidal mission and they're no longer sure how to keep that promise they made each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You stay alive, I stay alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I did it AGAIN. Those guys are just....my new favorite ship. Even if I don't think the original makes it very easy to ship Gideon/Mitchell, I can't stop. Those characters are just so very interesting and their situation...so dramatic. I love that. So I couldn't resist. It's helpfull to have read "Born to die." before. Enjoy!

You stay alive, I stay alive. 

Being a soldier meant switching your humanity off. It meant giving up yourself to become a fighter without feelings. There wasn’t any room for second thoughts, for doubt or fear. A soldier’s body, full of adrenaline, only needed to obey orders, it needed to serve the mission and the mission alone. As soon as Mitchell and Gideon invaded Baghdad in their stolen heavily armored suits, their minds went auto-pilot and became vessels for tactics, movement, shooting. All that counted now was stopping Irons. No matter the costs.  
A soldier fulfills his duty, he sacrifices himself for a higher goal that might even proof itself as wrong. A soldier doesn’t question, he takes action. But since behind all that weaponry and bulletproof clothing still lies a human being, no soldier could ever be able to function perfectly. No human being was meant not to feel or think anything. Soldier-mode therefore meant reduced thinking, reduced feeling, the suppression of fear and precise work. It didn’t mean there never were any doubts. It didn’t mean that killing people became easier. It didn’t mean you wouldn’t worry.

So when Gideon and Mitchell succeeded at invading Irons command center, Mitchell thought to himself that it had nearly been too easy to get inside. Following Gideon, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that it could only get worse. Listening to Ilona’s voice over the Coms, his thoughts proved themselves right. More enemies incoming from every side. Mitchell felt his heart drop. They’d never get out here alive. 

Gideon, leading the way through the building, did look back to make sure Mitchell was still behind him far more often than he should have. His thoughts darkened with every minute and every wave of opponents trying to kill them. He had known this mission was suicidal before, but standing in a bullet-hail felt different than just thinking about it. Anyway he kept moving, ordering Mitchell to keep an eye on his flank and silently hoped they’d at least succeed in stopping the rocket launch. Time was running out faster than it should and Gideon wasn’t sure they’d be fast enough to reach the rocket in time.

Mitchell didn’t make any noise when an MG-bullet ruined the plating of his suit right beyond his collarbone and hit him. The pain was wiped away by adrenaline when he fired his next shot to save Gideon from being killed by a hidden Sniper around the next corner. Calculating the possible amount of blood he might be losing through the injury, Mitchell came to the conclusion that he should be able to finish the mission. The bullet didn’t seem to have hit any organs or important arteries, the pain wasn’t big enough for heavy inner bleeding and breathing still worked alright. There was no need to panic. The only thing that worried him was the state of his suit’s armored protection. He kept his worries to himself.

Gideon turned around to see that Mitchell was bleeding. Acting as if he didn’t notice anything and scraping together all of his discipline, he kept himself from running over to Mitchell and freaking out. Instead, he waved the private closer to signal they had to keep moving. With his heart pounding heavily in his chest, he ignored the pain that flooded him. Taking another secret look at the injury when Mitchell stood beside him, sneaking around the next corner, he calculated that Mitchell wouldn’t die of that bullet if they got out of here fast enough. Gideon decided that was gonna work. Simply because it had to.

They had nearly made it through the hall, were so close to the rocket, when Gideon held Mitchell back for a second and closed his mic with his fingers. Locking eyes with the private, Gideon looked more determined as ever as he murmured that one little sentence before he started running towards the launching platform. “Don’t bloody dare to die.”  
Mitchell smirked and followed Gideon, firing at the last remaining Atlas-Soldiers inside the hall.

It wasn’t until the countdown started that Gideon lost the last bits of his optimism. They clearly had come too late. The launch wasn’t to be stopped and they wouldn’t even be able to reach that rocket or to just flee. They stood under the platform and Gideon knew that the starting fire of the launch might as well fry them in case their suits were damaged badly enough. Those five seconds passed faster than they should but still felt like forever to Gideon. He wouldn’t dare to turn back and look at Mitchell. Looking at the private would for sure flood him with guilt and fear and might even paralyze him. Gideon couldn’t risk to allow himself to be weak. Not now. Not as long as they might stand a tiny chance to stop Manticore. It was insanity to keep walking towards that rocket, but Gideon knew it was too late to turn back. Expecting the blast, he still was surprised how heavy the explosion was and nearly lost grip to the Platform. “Hold on, Mitchell!”, he shouted, trying to drown the roar of the starting rocket. And then there was the firestorm. The suit would keep him from catching fire, but still, it felt like being cooked. Ignoring the burning and the hopelessness of their situation, Gideon kept moving, hoping that Mitchell clung on to the platform and praying he wasn’t dead yet. 

Mitchell fell and landed heavy on his back, as the explosion pushed him back. Fixated to the look of his moving Captain, he managed to force himself to get up and ignore the pain creeping up his spine, the burning of his wound and the aching of his head. His legs were shaking and the heat nearly drove him insane, but he managed to keep walking, to keep fighting. When they finally got out of that inferno and started shooting at the rocket, his vision already became blurred.  
Gideon was nearly out of ammo when that damn rocket’s gear finally exploded and the launch got interrupted. He felt like raising his arms and shouting, but instead, his vision turned black and he fainted. 

Mitchell dropped to his knees as soon as the launch had been stopped and his blurred vision started to turn black. His last conscious thought as he saw Gideon fall was a simple “no.”

Mitchell woke up as somebody shook his shoulder and the bullet inside him sent burning pain through his body. “Mitchell. Come on. Stay with me!” He felt a hit on his cheek and finally managed to open his eyes even if his lids felt as if they weighted a thousand tons. Gideon was staring at him looking rather worried and Mitchell noticed he had never seen worry on Gideon’s face before. “Are you alright?”   
Mitchell tried to nod, but couldn’t and therefore simply murmured a weak “yeah”.  
“Fuck, Mitchell! Don’t ever scare the shit out of me like that again!”  
Mitchell slightly chuckled. “Ok.”  
“Listen, we stopped Manticore, but they will tear down this building soon enough. We need to get out of here.”  
Mitchell grimaced with pain as he unsuccessfully tried to get up. His vision became blurred again and he blinked in panic.  
Gideon sighed with worry and touched his shoulder.  
“I got ya. Just stay with me, okay. Don’t die.”  
“I’ll try.”  
“You promised.”  
“Yeah.”  
“You stay alive, I stay alive. I’m gonna get us outta here.”  
With that unsteadily voiced comment, Gideon lifted Mitchell out of his armor and onto his shoulder and Mitchell lost conscience again.

Pain was all Gideon felt. Mitchell was heavy as hell, his face felt burned, his muscles sore and he knew he couldn’t take much more. Even if he tried really hard to stay focused, he couldn’t stop himself from worrying about Mitchell and he wasn’t able to ignore the pain in his chest evolving from that worry. Atlas wasn’t dead yet and with every meter he managed to walk, another wave of hostile soldiers tried to kill them. He managed to take them out one by one after he got Mitchell behind cover and checked on him, before lifting him up again. His pulse was unsteady but strong, his face pale. Something inside Gideon tightened and made breathing seemingly impossible for half a second. Then he threw Mitchell over his shoulder and kept on walking.

It was as if it’d never stop. The more Atlas soldiers he killed, the more came flooding in. He shouted at Ilona over the coms, nearly begging for reinforcement, but the communication didn’t properly work at the moment and so he had to fight them all on his own. Hiding behind a column, he again checked Mitchells pulse. It felt weaker than before. Touching Mitchells cheek, he leaned down and whispered into the private’s ear. “Come on Mitchell. You fucking promised it. Just a little while longer. You’ve gotta hold on! Please…!” Gideon hated how his voice was shaky and begging, but ironically enough, he was glad Mitchell couldn’t hear it while all the same all he wished for was for Mitchell to switch back into conscience again. There he was, leaning against the weak cover of a stupid column, covering Mitchell with his own body and begging for him to survive. He clearly hadn’t only lost his dignity, but his sanity. Grabbing Mitchell’s hand, he made one last try to wake him up. It wouldn’t work. Sighing, he carried on carrying Mitchell while shooting whatever moved inside his aim.

Mitchell woke up and immediately went back to soldier mode, firing the handgun at whoever past his gaze and tried his best to help out Gideon who kept telling him that he needed to hold on, that they had that deal Mitchell had to cling on to. His magazine soon was empty and so was his strength. He heard Gideon swear before he drifted into blackness again.

Every now and then, Mitchell would wake up and see Gideon’s back, feel the shake of being carried and wonder in a state of unsteady conscience, why he never before recognized how nice Gideon’s ass looked. Sometimes, he woke up to the pain all of his body parts were sending and the nausea caused by being carried with the head downwards just to hear Gideon curse at him. Mitchell wasn’t stable enough to recognize the swearing got softer every time and became a supplication. He wouldn’t notice that Gideon shook under his weight and forced himself to carry Mitchell no matter how exhausted he was. Mitchell wouldn’t hear Gideon calling him Jack and softly stroking his hair every now and then after placing him beyond cover and checking his pulse. 

While Mitchell only got bits of what happened, Gideon nearly became desperate. Those last couple of minutes had felt like an eternity and it didn’t feel as if they were getting closer to the exit at all. The coms still stayed silent and he couldn’t reach Ilona to tell her to wait a little while longer with the air strike, to tell her not to collapse the whole building on him and Mitchell. So when they finally got to a place that was all dark and Gideon had to search for some light, he dropped Mitchell carefully and shook him to wake him up. He couldn’t carry Mitchell any second longer and could only hope that Mitchell had recovered enough to walk on his own.  
“I need you to get on your feet. Can you do that for me?”  
He looked at Mitchell who seemed finally more awake than unconscious and frowned until Mitchell nodded and slowly stood up.  
“Great. We need to find some light…”  
At that second, the place became all lit up and Gideon nearly jumped back at the sight of Irons, who was standing behind a security glass panel right in front of them. Before he got a chance to break the glass with one of his last bullets, he ran out of ammo, and Irons disabled their Exos.  
Mitchell burned with hatred as Irons approached them and felt like spitting into his face. Knowing it wasn’t the best of ideas to make an insane man even more angry, he contained himself and managed to reduce his hatred to angry staring, while Gideon didn’t hold himself back at all and cursed at the Atlas Commander. When Irons pushed his handgun right into Mitchells face, stating “I could kill you know”, he was nearly sure it was going to end right now and trying to catch one last glimpse of Gideon, he saw his captain grimace with unvoiced pain, rioting against his own exo. Surprisingly enough, Irons somehow decided not to kill him now, maybe hoping the collapsing building wouldn’t mind to do the dirty work for him as the floor already got shaky.

For one second, all Mitchell could do was to stare at the fleeing Irons, thinking “so this is it” to himself, but then Gideon woke him from his trance. “Try to hit release on your exo!” Gideon was back to commanding orders in his typical “I’m the captain” way and so Mitchell simply did as he was told. He nearly collapsed without the exo, but managed to get back on his feet faster than he’d thought. All that hate had sent a fine dose of adrenaline through his veins and helped to keep him stable as he tried to release Gideon. Panicking, he realized that Gideon wouldn’t be able to get out of his exo and move. The building started to make crackling noises. They needed to get out of here right now! Mitchell pushed the release button in frantic desperation but still, nothing changed. “Mitchell, stop!”  
Mitchell lifted his gaze and met with Gideons.  
“You need to go. Get Irons, for fuck’s sake!”  
“I’m not leaving you here.”  
Gideon sighed.  
“If you don’t, we’ll both be dead within minutes, and that bastard Irons will flee. Go get him, Mitchell. If he manages to escape, everything we did was in vain.”  
“But our deal…”  
“I’ll release myself. Just run!”  
“I can’t. Gideon, I…”  
“Shut up! Go and kill Irons! That’s an order!”  
Mitchell dropped his gaze and still didn’t move.  
“Look at me, Mitchell!”  
Mitchell looked up.  
“It’s okay. I promise. Now go!”  
Mitchell still wouldn’t move.  
“GO!”  
The private finally started running.

Over the coms, he could hear Gideon talking to him.  
“Get that bastard Mitchell! Keep running and don’t turn back!”  
Nearly out of breath, Mitchell murmured a quiet “I’m sorry.”  
Gideon simply commented that with a “shut up.”  
“Copy that.” Mitchell murmured and kept running.

Reaching a bridge into nowhere, he finally spotted Irons and kept running frantically towards him, ignoring his exhaustion and pain and simply ran as fast as he could. The coms had died and so it was impossible for him to talk to Gideon again, but he needed his breath anyway. When he finally nearly caught up with Irons, another Soldier approached and attacked him. Mitchell, in his blind hatred and drowning pain simply pulled his knife from his holster and stabbed him. Two more meters and he caught hold of Irons who by the impact fell and slipped of the edge of the nowhere-leading bridge, grabbing hold of Mitchell’s malfunctioning, nearly completely destroyed artificial arm. Mitchell tried to release his arm, while Irons begged him to pull him up. The last thing Mitchell was going to do was to rescue Irons. Thinking about the collapsing building and the fact that he needed more time to run back and safe Gideon, he made a radical decision. Grabbing his knife, he cut off the remains of that mechanical arm. The remaining natural nerves connected to those electronics hurt so much, his vision blurred again, but Mitchell kept cutting through them cables and metal-pieces, ignoring Irons’ shouting and finally managed to cut himself lose. Irons fell to that pit of fire that Baghdad’s Atlas-ruins had become, still holding on to the arm he’d given to Mitchell.

Hearing his own heartbeat inside his ears and feeling his vision blacken, Mitchell forced himself to get up and try to turn and run back to Gideon when the building trembled and Mitchell impended to fall. Yet preparing himself for more pain, Mitchell was surprised to be caught by no less than Gideon.   
“Gideon, how…” Mitchell couldn’t manage to finish his sentence as unconsciousness again stretched its icy fingers after him.  
“It’s alright, I gottcha, mate.” Gideon stared into the pit Irons had fallen into. “It was only gonna end one way for him.”   
Mitchell tried to nod, but couldn’t and Gideon recognized Mitchell was close to collapse. Since the mission was over now, Manticore had been stopped and Irons was dead, Gideon couldn’t keep his worry to himself any longer any nearly panicked.  
“Mitchell! Stay with me, okay! We need to…find an exit…this building will collapse.”  
Mitchell sunk against his shoulder and murmured an agonized “sorry”.

Gideon pulled himself together and lifted Mitchell up once again and simply started running as fast as he could. “Gideon?”  
Ilonas voice came into the coms and Gideon sighed with relief.  
“Ilona. Irons is dead, Manticore stopped. We need help. Evacuation needed.”  
“Where are you?”  
“Still inside the building.” Gideon kept running towards the building again, entering and running down the stairs as fast as he could while he carried Mitchell.  
“Get out of there! It’s collapsing!”  
“Fuck, I know that! Can’t an aircraft pick us up?”  
“Won’t be at your position before ten minutes.”  
“Mitchell’s badly injured.”  
“Can you get him outta there?”  
“I will.”  
“Copy that. We send evacuation as close to you as possible. And a medic.”

The stairs made up their own little eternity of steps and Gideon more than once thought that he couldn’t make another step downwards. Mitchell got heavier every second and to his better knowledge, Gideon did not spare his breath but went on talking to Mitchell, hoping that might keep him alive a little while longer.  
“When we’re out of here, I’m gonna kick your ass, Mitchell!”  
Sometimes Mitchell replied with little, pain-covered laughter or a barely enthusiastic “yeah”. It was enough for Gideon not to give up on him yet. As long as Mitchell was alive, he wouldn’t let him down.  
“We nearly made it Mitchell. Just one more stair.”  
The building shook again and rubble started raining from above. Gideon forced himself to run even faster, holding Mitchell tighter by his hips not to let him fall off.  
“Still there, Mitchell?”  
“Hmh.”  
“I’ll kill you if you die, you hear me?”  
“Hmpf.”  
They finished the last stair and Gideon nearly got euphoric, when a large piece of the ceiling came down and landed right in front of his feat, blocking the way out. “Shit!”  
“What’s wrong?”  
Ilona’s voice sounded worried.  
“Some rubbish blocking our way out.”  
“No other way out?”  
Gideon thought about climbing the stairs back up, but knew he wouldn’t make it, not with Mitchell hanging over his back.  
“No.”  
“Fuck. I’m coming over as fast as I can. Hold on. I’ll help you get that thing out of the way!”  
“Ilona, don’t…!” But Ilona was gone already.  
“Fuck. Mitchell?” Mitchell didn’t answer. “Mitchell!” Still no reaction.  
Gideon carefully dropped the private on the stair and kneeled down to him.  
“Mitchell, come on!” His pulse was barely detectable, but he wasn’t dead yet.  
Gideon softly slapped the private’s cheeks, but Mitchell still didn’t even wince. Watching Mitchell’s chest, Gideon saw his breathing grew more shallow every second.  
“Please, Mitchell…don’t do this to me. You promised, Mitchell! You fucking promised! I am alive, so you gotta stay alive! That’s all you ever had to do, you stupid piece of shit!”  
Gideon’s voice trembled and died out. Holding back the girlish water that tried to blaze a trail into his eyes, he got up and hopelessly tried to lift up that large piece of ceiling. It didn’t even move. His arms felt heavy, but even at his best days, Gideon wouldn’t have been able to lift something as big as that on his own. Rubbing his face, Gideon returned to Mitchell and sat next to him. Leaning over him, he covered Mitchell from more smaller ceiling-pieces that kept raining down and allowed himself to look at his face.   
“This is it”, he thought “we’re dying inside this fucking building.”

It wasn’t how he’d imagined his death. He wanted it to be more heroic. He had imagined a bullet would kill him today. Straight trough the head, no pain, just death. But now that he and Mitchell had survived all the fighting, they were going to die because of construction material falling down on them. They’d be buried alive. Gideon could take a lot, but that thought was horrifying. Besides, even if the building didn’t collapse on them within the next minutes, Mitchell’s chances to survive sank with every second that passed. Out of utter helplessness, Gideon took a look at Mitchell’s bullet-wound and drew some hope from recognizing that it had at least stopped bleeding, since the bullet was stuck inside Mitchell’s skin. Maybe Mitchell could hold on a little while longer. Maybe Ilona brought enough men with her to move that fucking piece of ceiling. He did not like the thought of Ilona entering this instable building, but neither he liked the thought of abandoning Mitchell to flee via another floor nor the thought of him and Mitchell dead.  
Another five Minutes of utter desperation passed and Gideon allowed himself to completely lose his mind and take Mitchell’s hand to stroke it. Normally, he’d find that utterly embarrassing, but nobody could see them and he wanted to show Mitchell he was there somehow. What Gideon didn’t expect was the hand he was holding to squeeze his and so he winced before looking at Mitchell’s face, seeing he was awake once more.  
“What happened?”  
“Don’t talk.”  
“Where…?”  
“Shh, you idiot. Still inside the building, but nearly out. Something’s blocking the exit. Help’s coming.”  
Mitchell frowned by looking at Gideon’s hand holding his.  
Gideon followed his gaze, cleared his throat uncomfortably and let go of Mitchell’s hand.  
Mitchell looked at Gideons face and saw all the exhaustion and worry and fear.  
“Don’t”, he whispered.  
“What?” Gideon looked confused.  
Mitchell slowly raised his hand a bit and Gideon understood. Hesitating only for a second, Gideon took Mitchell’s hand again and continued to stroke it. “Better?”  
“A lot.”  
Gideon smirked and shook his head thinking about the awkwardness of the situation.  
“What?” Mitchell asked.  
“I said, shut up. You shouldn’t speak. Save your energy.”  
“No. I…the talking helps to stay awake.”  
Gideon sighed. “Okay. So we keep talking?”  
“Yeah. So what you’re laughing about?”  
Gideon snorted. “Everything?”  
“That’s like… a lot.”  
Gideon saw Mitchell’s eyes flicker and pressed his hand even more.  
“Come on, Mitchell, look at me.”  
Mitchell tried to focus at Gideon’s gaze and slowly blinked.  
“Why don’t you just…flee? There must be another way out.”  
“And leave you here? You regard me a comrade-fucker?”   
“Seriously.” His voice got weaker. “I want you to go. Please.”  
“I won’t have that stupid ‘Oh please leave me, save yourself’ cliché talk with you. Shut up about it or I’ll make you.”  
“Gideon…”  
“You stay alive, I stay alive. Remember?”  
Mitchell smirked.  
“Can’t we forget about that?”  
“No, we can’t.” Gideon suddenly looked deadly serious.  
“I don’t want to leave you, okay? I can’t. I’m not letting this happen. You are not going to die. Not today.”  
“I…”  
“Please, Mitchell. Just…drop it, okay?”  
“I just…thank you.”  
The private’s eyes started flickering again and Gideon impulsively stroke Mitchell’s hair, touching his cheeks softly. “Stay with me. Please.”

“Gideon?”  
The captain promptly got on his feet as he heard the voice calling his name.   
“Ilona?”  
“Where are you?”  
“Behind that fucking large piece of stone and metal, for fuck’s sake!”  
“Alright, we’ll try to get that out of the way.”  
“Hurry the fuck up. Mitchell needs a friggin’ medic right now!”  
“He’s being melodramatic!” Mitchell tried to shout back, but out of his mouth came a whisper that only Gideon could hear.  
Gideon heard men approaching and soon he could see Ilona and ten soldiers gathering around the barrier that blocked the way out.  
“Good to see you, Gideon.”  
“Save that smalltalk for later.”  
“Let’s lift that shit up. On three. One, two, three!”  
Ilona, Gideon and the other soldiers pushed that shitty thing up as far as they could and together managed to get it out of the way. The building shook again. Gideon pointed back. “Go get Mitchell.”  
Two men, one of them a medic, ran over to the again unconscious Mitchell. Gideon wanted to follow them, ignoring his own exhaustion and the finery that rained down on him once again, when Ilona tried to grab his arm.  
“Come on captain. Save the heroics for later. We need to get out.”  
The two soldiers were carrying Mitchell out already and so Gideon made a step towards Ilona when something large suddenly hit his head and his vision went black. 

Gideon’s injuries weren’t too bad.   
Besides a laceration, a concussion, burnings at his face, two broken ribs, a wound on his arm caused by a grazing shot and utter exhaustion, he was quiet alright. After sleeping two full days he woke up to get rid of that tube inside his arm and tried to get up. The doctor’s wouldn’t allow him and also refused to answer his questions about Mitchell because he wasn’t a relative. Ilona, who was out on a mission clearing Baghdad of the last remaining Atlas soldiers, wasn’t reachable. So when the night came and the nurses in the military hospital thought him to be asleep, Gideon sneaked out of his room searching for Mitchell. It didn’t take too long to find out where the private was because the nurses had been talking about him in the morning, referring to him as the “hair guy in room 401”.

Standing at his door finally, Gideon shortly hesitated. Was he ready to see this? Would Mitchell be okay? He took a deep breath and exhorted himself not to be a stupid softy.

Mitchell woke up from the sound of the squeaking door and opened his eyes in irritation.   
Slowly raising his head, he recognized Gideon, standing in the back light of the corridor that came flooding through the gap of the opened door.  
“Hey, Mitchell.”  
Mitchell opened his mouth, but closed it again without saying something.  
“Erm. Can I come in?”  
Mitchell nodded and sat up.  
Gideon entered the room and immediately started to nervously wander around.  
“You look bad, man.” Mitchell finally managed to say after looking at Gideon in the half-darkness of the room.   
Gideon didn’t answer but continued to wander around.  
“Could you stop that? Your running around drives me crazy!”  
Gideon came to a halt. He grabbed the iron rod at the end of Mitchell’s bed and leaned onto it. “Sorry.”  
Mitchell kept staring at him. “Are you alright?”  
Gideon scratched his head. “Yeah, sure. I…just wanted to, you know…check on you and…stuff.”  
“No, seriously. Are you alright?”  
“Oh you mean…” Gideon pointed at his head-bandage. “That’s nothing. Just a scratch.”  
“O-kay. Well, I’m…erm…glad you’re okay.”  
“Yeah. I…how are you?”  
Mitchell sighed. “I’m fine.”  
Gideon still wouldn’t look at him but at the floor.  
“How’s the arm?”  
“Gone.”  
Gideon lifted his head in shock.  
“What?”  
Mitchell shrugged. “They say my remaining nerves are too short…it’s…there will be some operations until I get another prosthesis, but…well. It’s…it’s gonna be okay.”   
Gideon looked at Mitchell’s face, understanding that he didn’t really believe everything was going to be okay. “I’m sorry, Mitchell.”  
“It’s alright. I…maybe I shouldn’t fire any more guns anyway.” He tried to smirk but Gideon could see right through Mitchell’s masquerade.  
“Yeah. Risked your life often enough.”  
“Maybe.”  
“Mitchell, I…I just came here to…you know” he cleared his throat “to, well…thank you.”  
“Thank me? What for? I just did my job and so did you.”  
“For, erm…keeping… that promise.”  
Mitchell swallowed. “Um…thank you too. You know. For keeping the promise.”  
“Yeah. It’s…I just…I didn’t know how you were…they wouldn’t tell me, and…” Gideon’s voice just died in the middle of the sentence.  
“I was worried about you too. All I heard was that you are alive. I wanted to visit, but…they wouldn’t let me.”  
“I wasn’t…worried. I just…wanted to know.”  
“Sure. So did I. Just wanted to be sure. That’s all.”  
“Good.”  
“Good.”  
“I’d better go before the nurses catch me. They’re a fucking nightmare.”  
“Yeah, sure. Um…good night?”  
“Good night.”  
Gideon turned, walked back to the door and hesitated.  
Something inside him didn’t want to leave. 

He turned back, clearing his throat, staring embarrassed at the floor.  
“I was worried, okay? I was fucking worried, because you idiot nearly got yourself killed.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“You’d better be. I thought you’d just…leave me alone.”  
Mitchell swallowed. “You…what?”  
“Fuck, Mitchell. Don’t do that. Don’t make me…I don’t do stuff like that. Just…” Gideon shook his head.  
“I don’t know what you’re…”  
“I was holding your hand for fuck’s sake!”  
And then it finally occurred to Mitchell, what Gideon was trying to say.  
“I wanted you to do so.”  
Gideon smirked.   
They fell silent.  
“Erm, Gideon, why won’t you…um…” he waved him closer and Gideon made a few steps towards him. Mitchell was now able to see Gideons eyes and he could see doubt and embarrassment.   
“You saved my life, Gideon. You were willing to sacrifice yourself.”  
“Crap. I just did my job.”  
Mitchell smirked and Gideon lifted his gaze.  
“Quit staring at me, would you?”  
“But I like staring at you.”  
Gideon’s lips trembled and formed a smile. “Do you?”  
“Yep.”  
“I didn’t know that.”  
“Yeah, you did.”  
“Maybe.”  
Gideon’s gaze wandered from Mitchell’s eyes to his lips.  
“Oh fuck it.”

Without further hesitation, he sat down on the bed and placed his hand on Mitchell’s cheek. Mitchell immediately leaned into the touch and felt a wave of prickling feelings rolling in. Gideon slowly blinked and then decided to just finally do what he’d been willing to do for months. Leaning foreward and closing his eyes, he placed his lips on Mitchell’s and waited for his reaction. When Mitchell pressed his lips against him in return, Gideon placed his hand at Mitchell’s neck and pulled him closer, kissed him properly and carefully licked Mitchell’s lips, which immediately parted and let him slide his tongue inside. Mitchell grabbed his captain’s hip and held onto it, intensifying the kiss. Gideon’s mind went blank. All he could was to feel and what he felt was amazing. Mitchell kissed Gideon as if there was no tomorrow, hoping that Gideon wouldn’t ever stop kissing him like that.  
It didn’t matter none of them was able to find the right words. It didn’t matter that Mitchell was afraid of the future and the operations and the prospect of a live with only one arm. It didn’t matter that they were tired and injured and used to be just comrades.   
All that mattered was that very minute, that feeling of soft lips against soft lips, that feeling inside their chests, that utter disbelief that this was actually really happening. Their happiness about them both being alive. Being together was what counted. Everything else could be sorted out later.   
They sat there kissing as long as they could until their lungs longed for oxygen and they had to part.  
“What was that?” Mitchell chuckled.  
“Oh, shut up.”  
Gideon kissed him again. The kissing continued for more than twenty minutes, until Mitchell looked at Gideon and saw he appeared to be a bit pale.  
“Everything okay?”  
Gideon snorted. “Of course. Why are you asking? Did I do something…wrong?”  
“No. No! You just…look a bit pale.”  
“Just tired.”  
Gideon tried to kiss him again, but Mitchell drew aside. “Ah-ah. You should be sleeping.”  
“Are you fucking kidding me?”  
Mitchell smirked. He had an idea.  
“Why don’t you…” he moved to the side, leaving more space at one side of the bed “keep me company tonight.”  
Gideon laughed. “Bit early, don’t you think?”  
Mitchell rolled his eyes. “Not that way.”  
Gideon chuckled. “I know.”

Without another comment, Gideon lay down beside Mitchell and put his arm protectively around him, as if he’d never done anything else.  
Mitchell locked eyes with him and they kissed again.  
When they parted, Gideon smiled an honest, in no way ironic smile.  
“Good night, Jack.”  
“Good night.”  
Mitchell closed his eyes, leaning into Gideons arms and listened to his fast-pounding heart until they both fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And again: Apologies for grammar mistakes/typos, weird style and so much OOCnes...hope you liked it. I'm happy about every comment ;)


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